Nerd stopped nuclear armageddon on a "hunch"
Two decades ago:
Moscow — Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker's main control panel: Missile Attack!
It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound.
The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration.
Link
Moscow — Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker's main control panel: Missile Attack!
It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound.
The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration.
Link
posted by David at 4:24 PM
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